


Center of Everything

by Patchouli (lifelesslyndsey)



Series: O Brother [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pack Bonding, doing wolf stuff, not eachother, peeing on things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:12:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4442447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lifelesslyndsey/pseuds/Patchouli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His keys feel heavy in his hand, weighed down by the one he’d pilfered how long ago, copied at an all-night kiosk, and cherished until this fucking moment. It feels wrong in his palm, as if it’s squirming to be dropped like a third-grade classroom hamster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Center of Everything

Scott’s mad.

 

It’ not so much a novelty as it use to be - Scott being mad at Stiles. In fact, moons included, Scott being mad at Stiles is as commonplace as the weeds growing up between the cracks in the path that paves the way from the porch to mailbox. The path Stiles now retreats down, to where his Jeep is parked on the curb.   Scott’s house feels foreign and foreboding, like Stiles hasn’t spent countless hours parked on the couch within, or in front of the fridge, or at the table, or even the roof.  His keys feel heavy in his hand, weighed down by the one he’d pilfered how long ago, copied at an all-night kiosk, and cherished until this fucking moment. It feels wrong in his palm, as if it’s squirming to be dropped like a third-grade classroom hamster.

 

He doesn’t drop it.  Scott’s not his Alpha, but he is his friend. Maybe not right in this instance; right now, Scott is nothing but betrayed.  Stiles can smell it - like sour grapes, it’s bitter and makes him cringe. Even if he couldn’t smell it, Stiles would know. He knows Scott.

 

He’s not surprised to find Derek in his room, when he finally makes it home.  In fact, he’d expected it as soon as he’d pulled on to his street.  Derek feels sort of like the Sun - Stiles can’t find a better way to explain it. He’s at the center of Stiles everything. The center of his personal universe, and Stiles just orbits him. It’s something in his chest. It doesn’t tug, doesn’t pull at him, but sits like a live wire between them. He can’t see it, but it might as well be tangible for all that he can feel it.

 

It makes him think of those old Greek tales, where soul mates were connected at the wrist by red string that only certain individuals could see, but he and Derek aren’t soul mates. They are connected. Stiles can feel it, as he orbits and orbits and orbits.  Derek is the center of their small world - their pack.

 

Stiles room is their den. Four walls, blue paint, the smell of all Stiles boyish indiscretions; it’s their den. Not the Hale House, not the boxcar, but this room.  Derek’s scent is all over it, soaked in places that surprise Stiles, like the corner near the closet, and the edge of the bed and the computer chair, and some that don’t, like the windowsill.

 

Tonight, Derek’s parked on the bed.  His sneakers are off, probably hidden in the closet. His socks are new-from-package white, and his ankles are....surprisingly delicate looking, sparsely haired and pale. There is something gut-wrenchingly bizarre about Derek Hale’s socked feet squinching deep in the fibers of Stiles bedroom carpet.

 

“He’s upset.” It’s not a question, barely even a fact. It’s recognition, and it echoes through the pack bond like words on a string between in cans. “You’re upset.”

 

“He’s mad,” Stiles says, with a deep, endless sigh. “And I’m...resigned, I guess. I don’t know. Will he get over it, you think?”

 

Derek, to his eternal credit, doesn’t lie in this. “You’re both bound, if distantly. Him through Peter, Peter through me, and then to you.  He’s...a brother.  But it’s his nature to forgive, isn’t it?”

 

“We always wanted to be real brothers.” Stiles doesn’t answer the question. It’s a dumb question. Scott is grossly forgiving. Which is why it will hurt so fucking badly, when he fails to forgive Stiles.

 

“...Do you want.....” Derek scratches at the back of his head awkwardly, and tips his head to Stiles bed.

 

“Yes.” He answers to eagerly, but there’s no hiding the thrum of anxiety in him from Derek, so there’s no shame in being eager. No more shame than normal, anyways.

 

It’s fucking puppy piling, no matter what Derek says.  They don’t quite curl around each other. They don’t even touch.  They bend like crescent moons to face each other, covered head to toe beneath Stiles’ blanket.  Stiles counts Derek’s eyelashes in the perfect darkness, and lets himself be smothered in the comfort of their pack-scent.  It’s weird how nice it feels, to be wrapped up in Derek like this, but it’s not Derek. It’s Alpha, and all the strange instincts that come with.  Stiles feels right, with his Alpha near.  They don’t dance around it anymore, like they did a first, lying stock-still top of a made-up bed, staring at he ceiling in stifling silence.

 

They’d learned quickly enough that it's less awkward not to do that, so now they don’t.

 

“You make a really good werewolf,” Derek says, apropos of nothing at all, and he flashes his eyes red as if to make the statement more real.

 

Stiles own flash too - it’s a knee jerk response.  They’re not the traditional beta-yellow.  Stiles is not a traditional beta. They’re sort of orange, like the fall between the spectrum of Alpha and Beta.  The first time he’d seen them, they’d made him inexplicably think of Lydia and her refusal to believe that orange and blue could match. They’re a burnt sort of orange, like a setting sun, or the last inch of whiskey in his father's bottle. They’re his.

 

“You make an awful Alpha.” Stiles feels his heart skip, just like he knew it would. Lying to tell the truth is easier than saying you feel right. “Just...the absolute worst.”  Beat. Skip. Beat.

 

Derek smiles, and Stiles heart skips for a different reason. A stupider reason. A far more dangerous reason than lying to a werewolf. He clears his throat. “....perimeter check?”

 

Derek smiles even brighter, like Stiles said something brilliant. He rolls out of bed and takes all the blankets with him. “Race me to the river?”

 

And then they’re off, coasting the line of Hale Land.  There’s nothing there - there never is, no scent of other Alphas, no dead animals, nothing but the skitter and scuffle of night-animals, and the smell of trees and wind and Derek pissing on any bush larger than a bread box.

  
  
  



End file.
